JMRD3: Elements
by Lilac Reverie
Summary: John & Mike & Rose & Donna, Part Three: The End of Time. Need I say more? Ten/TenB/Rose/Donna, original universe.
1. Chemistry

_**Author's Note:** Aaaaand, here it is, the challenge many of us set ourselves at some point: taking an existing episode and rewriting it to suit our purposes. My chosen target: End of Time (with a sideswipe at Waters of Mars for good measure). Let's see how I do. Reviews always welcome!_

_This is the third entry in my series John & Mike & Rose & Donna. As always, new readers are *strongly* urged to begin with the first story (you can find it through my profile). I'll be sprinkling reminders in for returning readers, but they're no substitute for the full backstory. (I'm trying not to waste as many words as I usually do on Fill-in.)  
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_**Chemistry**

**Element** noun 1. _Chemistry:_ one of a class of substances that cannot be separated into simpler substances by chemical means. See also chart under periodic table.

^..^

"Scorch it!" The Doctor was quite thoroughly annoyed; the TARDIS rarely disappointed him like this. "I'm sorry, Rose, Davey. I could have _sworn_ we had more space suits than this!" Waving a dismissive hand at the old orange suit from Krop Tor, he cast a last hopeless glance around the vast wardrobe before giving up. "Well, never mind, then. We'll just go somewhere else." He began stumping morosely towards the stairs; he'd really wanted this expedition.

The witnesses to his displeasure gave each other a conspiratorial glance, reassuring each other wordlessly of their like-mindedness: they weren't all that disappointed at this turn of events. "Hey, wait, Doctor! That's OK. We're fine. You go on ahead and explore the old station, we'll stay here and have a school day." Rose stopped her husband's petulant stomping, swinging him around and pulling his head down for a smooch.

"But... I wanted to show it to you, too! Don't you want to see it? The very first off-world colony?"

"Not without a space suit!" She grinned at him. "Go on, we're fine. Have fun!"

"Davey?"

"Yeah, go on, Dad."

"Wel-l-ll..." One last hesitation for show, and he capitulated, bounding over to the orange suit and pulling it on over his old pinstripe. "What is today, anyway, Assistant Professor? Maths? Literature?"

"Nope! Today is Search Day! But we need a new target, Professor."

"Oooooh, let's see, target for Mars, target for Mars..." He zipped up the suit and tilted his head back, contemplating, the tip of his tongue stuck behind his upper teeth in the way he knew drove Rose dizzy – glancing sideways at her under his lashes to make sure it was having its usual effect. "Ah! I have it. _Elements!_"

"Elements? As in, elementary, my dear Doctor?" Sure enough, her tongue tip was peeking out between her teeth, driving _him_ dizzy in return.

"Na-ah! Too easy, no points, so sorry!"

She stuck her tongue out the rest of the way, impudent. Laughing, the Doctor picked up the helmet and ran down the steps back to the control room, stopping to throw a couple of switches on the console before striding to the door. "There! I've extended the force field out ten feet so you two can at least step out the door. Mind the limit, now!" Suddenly tender, he turned and scooped Rose up for a kiss. "I won't be long." He waved at Davey back at the console (his nine-year-old dignity too much for too many affectionate embraces from his parents), then Rose helped secure his helmet, and he was off, bouncing across the Martian landscape towards the rocky ridge on the horizon.

Davey walked down the ramp to watch him go, and after Dad turned on the ridge for a last wave before disappearing down the other side, he stepped out the door onto the red sand and knelt down, scooping up a handful of it. "I know number one already, Mum: chemistry. The periodic table we learned last year. Let's take this to the lab and analyze it."

She beamed at her son. "Good one! And while that's running, we'll hit the dictionary for some more."

Truthfully, since they had made it back from Pete's World five years ago and begun traveling again, she had been enjoying her son's highly unorthodox education immensely. She often thought _she_ was learning as much as _he_ was. In fact, she sometimes suspected the Doctor (he had, indeed, left "John Smith" behind in the other universe for the most part, returning to the name he'd been using for centuries) of deliberately engineering the curriculum to make up for the huge gaps in her own education – though she never asked him about it. She didn't really want to know.

They usually spent the entire day on a single subject rather than dividing their time and attention up. Search days were some of the most fun – the Doctor would give them a target word or concept, one with many varied meanings, and she and Davey would hunt through the TARDIS library, databanks and labs for all those meanings, coming up with as many examples, extensions, shadings, and consequences as they could. The more points they earned, the bigger the ice cream sundae or other treat with which they celebrated at the end of the day. It was an exiting way of tying together an impressive array of subjects, starting with linguistics, of course, but they never knew what avenues and side alleys the search might take them down.

They stepped back inside the TARDIS, Rose closing the door carefully behind them, and took the Martian soil to the lab for analysis. Then, "to the library!" became the battle cry, and the Search was on.

^..^

Several hours later, Rose left Davey in the library, immersed in comparing several volumes of various philosophies, and puttered her way towards the control room, doing Mum stuff: picking up discarded bits of clothing and tossing them in general bedroom directions, quickly rinsing the lunch dishes, etc. She was just pulling up the outside sensors on the main screen and picking her way through her meager Gallifreyan (politely refusing the TARDIS's offer of translation) to see if she could locate the Doctor, for practice, when the man himself burst through the door, ripped off his helmet and threw it hard against the wall. The crunch told her it was going to need repair before it would be usable again; just as the thought crossed her mind, it fell into place beside the look on his face as confirmation that her husband was seriously disturbed and upset.

"Where's Davey? Inside?" He barely glanced at her, sweeping up to the console and tearing into pre-flight. No sooner had her "yes" left her lips than he threw the lever and spun them into the Void. Then he completely shocked her by suddenly pounding both fists down on the edge of the console and letting out a strangled scream of frustration and fury. "You stupid, _stupid_ machine! Why did you do that to me? Why did you take me there? _Why?_" Raising his head, he glared at the Time Rotor with such anguished reproach that Rose glanced to make sure the sledgehammer was out of his reach.

She softly stepped over to his side and tentatively touched his arm, and when he didn't flinch away, turned the touch into a gentle hold. "Doctor? … John? … What happened?" He shook his head, unable to articulate at the moment, but didn't shake her off, so she pulled him around, and then led him over to the huge, low curved couch they'd added against the wall behind the pilot's jump seat. He let her unzip the space suit and shimmied out of it, then collapsed on the cushions, and she crawled up and wiggled behind him, wrapping him up in her arms as he snuggled into his loving, human cushion.

Over the next few minutes, her warmth and love seeped into his slender frame, relaxing and soothing him. He twisted up and around to kiss her a thank you, then settled back again, finally able to take a deep breath and explain. "The TARDIS missed my target time. I was aiming for twenty sixty-nine, but it brought me to precisely November twenty-first, twenty _fifty_-nine instead. The very day the Bowie base was destroyed – the first human colony." Another deep sigh. "I met them, Rose. I met every one of them. They were all so wonderful, so brilliant, so _alive._ But I couldn't save them. I had to let them die. It's a fixed point in time, their deaths, with so many future events dependent on them – the entire future course of human space exploration. I couldn't... I wanted to, so much. God, it hurt so much to walk away. But I had to. I _had_ to..." His voice trailed away into a shuddering sob, and two tiny tears dripped unmentioned.

Humming softly in sympathy, she stroked his hair and whispered, "I'm so sorry, love." She knew better than anyone how much he cared about everyone he met. After a couple more minutes of silent companionship, she had an idea. "Tell you what. Let's go home for a bit, back to the shop. I'd like to see Mike and Donna and the kids, and just be normal for a bit. We haven't visited in a while. Besides, your brilliant son needs new textbooks soon; he's almost done with the ones we have." She chuckled softly. "At this rate, he'll be graduating from an Earth college before he's twelve."

The Doctor grinned up at her, slyly. "Which would make him right on track for a Time Lord's son." He sighed, then nodded. "Sounds good. _Remember Elizabeth_ it is." He wouldn't say so, but he absolutely loved the name his twin and sister-in-law had picked out for their used book shop back on Earth, in honor of Elizabeth Bennett of _Pride and Prejudice._ He turned his head, rubbing his cheek against her chest like a cat. "Do we have to go right this second, though, Mrs Smith?"

She purred. "Why, do you have something else in mind, Mr Smith?"

Grinning, he began to turn to make his suggestion, when out from the doorway stumbled Davey, red-eyed and sobbing. "Mum! Dad!"

Startled, they both reached out to him as he half-ran to the couch, pulling him into their cuddle. That he didn't resist spoke volumes about his distress. "Davey! What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I... I had a nightmare."

His parents gave each other a puzzled look. "It's the middle of the day!" remarked his father.

"I was reading Chinese philosophy, and I guess I fell asleep."

The Doctor grinned. "Well, that stuff would put anybody to sleep." His look softened, and he put a hand on Davey's head. "What was your nightmare about?"

"I.. I don't really remember now, it's fading. But there were three men. Three different men, over and over, flashing through my head one after the other."

"What men? Do you know any of them?"

The boy thought for a minute, carefully, trying to bring the faces up clearly. "No... I don't." His face twisted. "I'm sorry, Dad, it's fading. I can't remember now." He sat up straight, pulling away slightly, and rubbed his face. "I'm sorry. Stupid, getting all upset over a silly dream. I'm not a kid any more."

The Doctor's hand had slipped off his head as he pulled away; he put it back on his son's shoulder and gazed at him seriously. "No, but you're part Time Lord, and sometimes dreams are full of real meaning, not just stray images. The more a dream affects you emotionally, the more significant it is. Could be some very important information slipping into your mind from any number of avenues. If you remember anything else about it, or recognize any of the men, let me know right away, all right?"

Davey gave a last sniff, and nodded, solemn. "OK. I will."

His dad grinned, and ruffled his hair. "Good. As a matter of fact, Mum and I were just deciding something. How does a trip home to the shop sound? Would you like to visit Uncle Mike and Aunt Donna?"

His immediate, happy grin was answer enough.


	2. Subgroups

_**A/N:** My apologies for the delay in posting this - I've been preparing for out-of-town guests. Since they'll be here for the next week, it may be that long before I can continue on. Not to worry, I'll be back!_

_This is an interesting balancing act: including enough detail and description that readers who haven't seen (or aren't familiar with) End of Time understand what's going on, but not so much that those who have and are get bored and wander off. Hope I'm hitting it right. Do let me know!  
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**Subgroups**

**Elements** n. 2. _Subgroups:_ A distinct group within a larger community: _the __dissident __element __on __campus. _

^..^

"Thank you for coming, Mr Smith!"

"Not at all, Mr Naismith. I was quite intrigued by your description of the device. Where did you say you found it?"

"_I_ 'found' it within the defunct Torchwood Institute's warehouse. I'm led to understand that _they_ found it in a spaceship buried at the foot of Mount Snowdon. Since you are known in certain circles as having knowledge of extraterrestrial technologies, I thought you might like to take a look at it. We're having a bit of trouble bringing it online. Through here, if you please."

Mike followed the billionaire through yet another impressive doorwayin the mansion and into a huge room, previously known as a study; the far end of it was now taken over by an enormous three-sided structure from floor to ceiling, while along the two sides of the room were numerous workstations, computers humming and monitoring lights aflicker. On the left stood a matched pair of isolation booths – he couldn't be sure without a close sniff, but they appeared to be made of radiation-blocking tempered glass.

Naismith noticed his gaze towards the booths. "The device came with its own nuclear power supply, which we've installed in the cellar, directly below this room. The radiation bleedoff is strictly controlled in those booths – one technician on duty at all times. The power then runs to the gate, which encourages some kind of cellular regeneration."

"Fascinating. Seems to be some of it missing, though."

Naismith shot him a sharp look. "How did you know that? Never mind. Yes, it's actually a good deal larger than this. Much of it has been installed in the cellar, as well."

"I'd very much like to see it, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Well - " Distaste for the idea of guiding Mr Smith below like a valet flickered through Naismith's eyes. He was rescued by his own actual valet.

"Excuse me, sir. The video footage has arrived from the, ah, institute. There's something you should see, sir."

"Thank you, Danes. Would you – no. Mr Rossiter." He turned to one of the technicians. "Would _you_ please escort Mr Smith to the cellar?"

Rossiter didn't look pleased – in fact, he looked distinctly trapped; but then he swallowed his discomfort and gave Mike an insincere smile. "Certainly, sir. I was just going to check on the power levels; there seems to be a fluctuation. Ms Addams, would you bring the baselines, please?"

Mike followed the two technicians down the back hallway to the stairs. Glancing behind, he was pleased to see they had left the armed guards behind; apparently Naismith had not (yet) ordered them to keep him in sight. As they walked into the former wine cellar below the study, he pulled out his reading glasses (real ones; one of the small disadvantages of being half-human was that his brainy prop turned real) and slipped them on to peer at the computer screens. The structure above continued down through the floor and into the cellar, taking up the entire end of the room as it did the study.

"Incredible..." he murmured. "But what I'd really like to know," he went on, not looking at the two techs standing together watching him, "is why you're both wearing shimmers."

"What?"

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and whizzed it at them, still without turning. "_Shimmer!_" he intoned as the dim cellar light danced over their faces, then melted away, revealing green-skinned, spike-covered aliens. Their jaws dropped in unison as they glanced at each other, then stared in outrage.

"What did you do that for?" Addams (as cute in green as she had been in blonde) demanded.

Mike straightened up and turned to them, leaning back against the desk and crossing his arms. Ignoring her question, he started grilling them in return. "Who are you, what is this thing, and why are you interested in it?"

It took a bit of pushing, but they finally admitted they were Vinvocci salvagers, who had caught the signal the gate above had sent out when it was reactivated by Naismith's technicians and come to retrieve it. They had decided to infiltrate the operation and help with the repairs before liberating it, as working equipment triples in value (at least).

"So what is it, then?"

"It's just a medical device, to repair bodies."

"Then why is it so big?"

"Because it doesn't just repair _one_ body, it repairs whole _populations_! It sends the medical template out across the entire planet. We use it for ending plagues and pandemics."

Mike was thoughtful. "Pandemics... that's a useful device. Beats the hell out of vaccinating six billion people one at a time."

"Well, you're not keeping it," Rossiter pointed out firmly. "As soon as it's working, we're transporting it up to our ship."

Mike had his head back, thinking through the possibilities. "Does it work on psychology, too? Could you make tiny adjustments in everyone's mind, or is it too crude?"

"How should we know? We're not _doctors_, we're _salvage operators._" Addams was still irritated at being so rudely unmasked.

"Tell you what, then. I'll make a deal with you," Mike decided. "I'll help you fix it, and you let me use it, just once, then I'll help you steal it away."

The Vinvocci looked at each other, considering. Then Addams, who seemed to be in the lead, nodded decisively and turned back. "OK. You've got a deal. Now do you mind if we put our faces back on before we go back upstairs?"

Mike nodded back, grinning. The two techs each pushed up a sleeve and pressed the center of their wristwatches, and their human disguises shimmered back into place. Apparently they weren't very comfortable, as they squirmed a bit, adjusting. "You people are so... flat! How can you stand it?" Addams grumbled.

On the way upstairs, Mike was deep in though. _If I can use this thing to just... tone things down a bit, how wonderful that would be. Just a teeny-tiny bit less aggression, less hatred, less fear, in every human being. _

_It's all well and good for the __Doctor_, his mental tone turned sarcastic as he thought of his former, other self, _ to run on at the mouth about how __wonderful__ humans are – he never hangs around long enough to watch the fallout. He's never dealt with __his__ kids getting bullied, never had __his__ mum-in-law mugged at knifepoint._ His fists balled as he remembered those awful days, and the unexpectedly agonizing helplessness he'd felt. _And that's just the tiniest little slice off the top of human aggression. _

_For every act of charity or kindness are dozens of acts of cruelty. For every life saved medically, hundreds are lost. For every brilliant leap forward, every brave march into the unknown, there are a thousand broken lives. Not a single day has gone by since the dawn of history without a war being waged somewhere in the world. The only thing that changes is the number of casualties – and the inventiveness of how to make them._

_How much better the world, and humanity, if everyone were just a tiny bit calmer, less aggressive! What a Christmas present to the world that would be!_

They came back into the study and sat down at the terminals, and Mike dove in, deciphering the code to find the part of the programming he wanted. A few minutes later, he noticed a tech enter and walk to the right-hand isolation booth. He waved at the man in the left booth, "Shift change! My watch!" Closing the door firmly behind him, he pushed a large red button on the console. The signs above the doors switched, his turning to "locked" and the other "open"; the left-hand door audibly unlocked, and the man he relieved smiled and left.

^..^

In Naismith's private office down the hall, the billionaire was watching security videos of the massive explosion and fire the night before, which had burned Broadfell prison to the ground; his pretty, utterly spoiled daughter Abigail watching over his shoulder.

"There!" he said quickly, as a figure raced past the camera in front of the flames, far too fast to be human. "It looks like someone survived, after all."

"Do you think it's him?" asked Abigail.

"At that speed? Has to be." He smiled over his shoulder at his precious jewel.

"Oh, that would be such a Christmas present!" she smiled joyfully. The holiday was, after all, just two days away.

"You just leave it to Daddy," he replied.

They walked back into the gate room, the handsome, supremely self-confident black man and his twenty-something princess. "Attention, everyone! Christmas is canceled! It seems help is at hand! Prepare the gate!"

_What am I, chopped liver?_ thought Mike, but then he shrugged, turning to watch the gate come to life with brilliant flashes and splashes of unearthly energy. _Whoever else he's bringing in can't know more than I do. I'll have this baby humming in no time._

Briefly, he thought about calling Donna, and asking her to contact the Doctor – this was definitely something he'd be interested in. Then he grimaced, and squashed the thought. _What, and tell him Baby Brother can't handle a little adventure and needs his help? Forget it. I can take care of this all by myself – and be home in time for Christmas._


	3. Astronomy

**Astronomy**

**Elements** n. 3. _Astronomy: _any of the data required to define the precise nature of an orbit and to determine the position of a planet in the orbit at any given time.

^..^

On a secondary street in the heart of Chiswick, on the fringes of the business district, in the middle of a block of mixed stores and homes, was an old, three-story Victorian painted in gay purples and greens. The ground level had long been given over to commerce; for the last four years it had been a new-and-used book store, the proprietors of which lived in the upper floors. A large, hand-painted wooden sign hung above the steps; exhorting passers-by in flowing script to _Remember Elizabeth_.

On that bright winter afternoon one of the proprietors was running the cash register, helping a steady stream of customers with their last-minute gift selections, and grumbling to her helper in between. "Honestly, Grandad, why on earth did he have to go _now?_ What was so bloody important that he had to go haring off two days before Christmas, leaving me to manage the shop all by myself, smack in the middle of our busiest season?"

"Well, I'm sure he had good reason, Donna. You know better than I do what a devoted Dad he is. It's funny, though – how these things always seem to happen right around the holidays."

"Yeah, but does _he_ have to skive off to save the world? Why doesn't he just call the Doctor? It's not like we can't get a hold of him, with that superphone he left us."

"Oh, let the man have some fun for himself, sweetheart."

Another customer, purchasing a billionaire's autobiography. "Why should _he_ have all the fun these days? Why can't _I_ go off and save the world too? I used to be pretty good at that myself, you know? Grandad? Oi! Are you even listening to me?"

Wilf, standing near the back of the store, had stopped still, his head turned towards the back door. He waved her down. "Hush! You hear that?"

"What? All I hear is carols from the radio."

Suddenly he turned, a huge grin splitting his face, and began a jig, right there between the mysteries and the sci-fi. "We've got _company!_" he sang.

"Oh! Perfect timing!" She dashed past him, tossing off a "mind the store a minute!" over her shoulder.

"But..." he started to protest, then grinned and waved her on, and scuttled up to the register.

Donna burst through the back door just in time to see the last flash from the TARDIS light as it finished fading into the corner of their tiny back garden. As the wooden door opened and the smiling family piled out, she couldn't resist a jab at the Doctor. "You're getting better at parking that thing at last – you're only half on the flower bed."

Hugs all around, and then Davey scooted upstairs to find the twins and see what mischief they could get into – or at least, that's how Rose put it, to Donna's protests. "Oh, don't go giving them ideas, they do enough of that on their own, thank you!" She told the couple to go up and make themselves at home; "Unfortunately Mike has wandered off, leaving me and Grandad to watch the shop today, so I can't join you till we close."

"Can I help?" offered Rose, and Donna accepted gratefully. Even the Doctor tagged along into the stacks, though he was – as usual – more interested in browsing himself than helping the customers. Still, one-and-a-half additional pairs of hands would make the hours fly by faster.

As they came in through the back door, they found Wilf standing behind the counter with a confused and apprehensive look on his face as he listened to a woman dressed in a long black coat, speaking low and urgently to him. Both of them turned to the entering group, and Wilf caught the Doctor's eye, pointing to the woman as if to say "help me out with this one."

The woman hesitated, then made up her mind. She stepped forward to the Doctor, ignoring Donna's "may I help you?" and spoke directly to him. "Doctor? You're the Doctor?"

"Who are you?" he asked, warily.

She seemed to take that reply as an affirmative, and nodded, taking her large, concealing sunglasses off to peer intently into his face. There wasn't much that could be said about her; she had an average-looking face, medium build and height, with her hair concealed by a large kerchief, while the coat almost met her pumps. "My name is not important. I must speak with you, urgently, on a matter of utmost importance."

When she didn't go further, he prompted her "Regarding?"

Voice dropping to a low, intense whisper, her reply shocked him into momentary stillness. "Regarding the Master."

Rose, standing by his elbow, gasped, looking quickly from the mysterious woman to her husband. He'd told her about each of his encounters through the centuries with his old nemesis, especially the last one during the Year that Never Was.

The Doctor stared at the woman for a moment, then shook his head. "He's dead. I watched him die."

"We have reason to believe that is no longer true."

"What?" His sharp reply could have cut paper.

"Who's 'we'?" put in Rose.

The woman glanced at Rose, and decided to answer her. "Our group includes certain family members of Lucy Saxon, the Master's wife. We've been watching over her as best we could since her secret trial and incarceration, preparing against the day we now believe may have come to pass." She turned back to the Doctor. "Saxon left behind secret books, detailing – among a great many other evil things – how he could be brought back to life. We have reason to believe a group of devotees managed to obtain something of his, something through which a piece of him survived. And we believe they finally managed to bring all the pieces together – and resurrect the Master."

"When?"

"Last night. Lucy was being held in Broadfell Prison. Last night it was utterly destroyed in a huge explosion. The resulting fire burned it to the ground. No survivors were found. But if the cause of the explosion was the rite of resurrection, then _he_ would have survived. We have no doubt of that."

"How do you know that's what caused it?"

"We had someone on the inside, whose job was to remain as close to Lucy as they could, and give her the 'antidote', if you will – the opposite formula to the 'elixirs of life' as detailed in those secret books. That person has disappeared – but they weren't supposed to be on duty last night. The only reason they would have been present at the prison is if that ceremony were to have taken place."

Shocked and horrified, the Doctor didn't want to believe this mysterious, unnamed woman. But the simple fact of her knowing as much as she did pointed towards the awful possibility that her information was correct. He closed his eyes, and forced himself to take a deep breath, concentrating on deciphering the scents – and there it was: the tiniest, distant yellow tang that could only come from one source: a Time Lord. He knew it wasn't Michael, _his_ scent was a diluted version of the Doctor's own. No, the woman was right.

The Master had returned.

The Doctor was now in a race against time, against whatever evil the resurrected Master was concocting, to find the Time Lord and stop him.


	4. Ancient Philosophy

_**A/N:** Visitors have left, so I'm back to writing - and I think this soup has improved for simmering an extra week. Bon appetit!_

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**Ancient Philosophy**

**Elements** n. 4. _Ancient Philosophy: _One of four substances, earth, air, fire, or water, formerly regarded as a fundamental constituent of the universe; in western Astrology: any of the four triplicity groupings of signs associated with those substances.

^..^

Mike sat back from the computer and stretched, turning his head this way and that to crack his stiff neck. He'd been working on the gate programming for several hours, barely touching the generous snacks provided along the way, and had actually cracked the nut about an hour ago, though he had carefully kept any indication of that off his face. The only ones who had twigged were his co-conspirators. Now he glanced over to Rossiter and gave him the tiniest nod: he was ready to send out his planetary Prozac. _I wonder what effect it will have on me._

Rossiter nodded back and sent the go-ahead signal to Addams in the cellar, tucked away in an innocuous little query about the power levels. Under the guise of testing the power to a different set of circuits, they brought the gate up to full power – and then Mike reached over and tapped Enter.

No visible wave went out, but everyone in the room except Rossiter shook their head slightly, as if clearing their vision. Even Mike felt a tiny tickle of – something – fizzle through his brain. He put the sensation aside to consider later, and watched his monitor as the computer tracked the psychic shock wave circling the globe in less than five seconds. Catching Rossiter's eye again, he smiled and tipped his head, _it's all yours, _and the disguised Vinvocci slipped out the side door towards the cellar to make good his escape with his partner and their prize. He'd earlier whispered to Mike that they would need half an hour initiate the transfer.

Mike turned and peered closely at the Naismiths sitting on their "thrones" at the end of the room, looking for the effect of his Prozac, and smiled again to see them both with a hand to their heads, puzzled and disoriented. He whirled away from them towards the side door, however, as it opened again, letting a long-forgotten psychic scent hit his senses. Escorted by two heavily armed guards, wrapped up in a straightjacket, a collar around his neck with the leash being held by by the valet, Danes, was... the Master.

If the thought of escaping his nemesis' notice flittered through Mike's mind, it was quickly dispelled by the renegade Time Lord's flaring nostrils and darting eyes, latching like a searchlight onto his.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Then, "Who the hell are _you?_" demanded the Master. "You're not the Doctor, I just left him whimpering in the Wastelands. But you _are_ him, too_..._" He stalked over to Mike, dragging Danes along behind, and breathed deeply, tasting the air. "The Doctor's nothing but hot air, but you... you stink of dirt, and rocks, and decay. What did he do? Did he love this stinking humanity so much that he finally found a way to become one of them? I knew he would someday... Oh, wait, now, what's _that_ smell?" He took another sniff, and his maniacal grin got even wider. "A _metacrisis..._ Oh, that explains it! Ha-hah! I would have loved to have been there for that!"

"Why can't you just be a good dog and stay dead?" Mike growled back. _The Doctor's here? I should have known..._

"Oh, but living is so much more fun! I'm _never_ going to die! Never never never!" Mike looked on in horror as the Master's skin flickered out for a second, his skull blazing like lightning. The Master caught himself and went back on the attack. "But you should talk, you and your metacrisis genesis. Didn't work out as a plan for eternal life, though, did it? You're going to _die_, half-breed. Maybe sooner than you think."

"Half-breed? Yeah, that's me," Mike latched on to the word as a way of ignoring the rest of the Master's taunting. "Gallifrey on one side, Earth on the other, and me in the middle. But you? I think you're going to die sooner than I will. You're burning yourself up from the inside, aren't you? You'll be nothing but ash and cinders by morning."

"I'm _so_ hungry. I wonder what you'd taste like?"

"Gentlemen!" Naismith had had enough of their posturing. "As fascinating as your previous history might be, you're not here to compare tails, you're here to get the immortality gate working."

The name caught the Master's attention, and he turned towards the billionaire, dismissing Mike. "Immortality gate?"

As their host explained, Mike could see the wheels turning in the Master's head, and wondered how similar those wheels were to his own. What was he plotting? _Nothing good._

As the Master's restraints were released, and he sat down at one of the computers, Mike was compelled to warn Naismith. "You can't trust him! You have no idea what he'll do with the gate!"

The Master grinned slyly up at him. "And what were _you_ doing, eh? What _was_ that I felt a moment ago?"

Mike gaped, then answered quickly, "Nothing. I was fixing it." But he'd hesitated just an instant too long, and Naismith pinned him with a sharp look.

"Check it," he told the Master, who turned to the computer and began tapping the keys, getting the gist of the programming and swooping through it faster than anybody had a right to, while in response to a signal from Naismith, the guards both edged around to get a clear line at Mike.

The Master found what he was looking for in less than a minute and turned to look speculatively at the culprit. "Docility..." he murmured, and a icy cat's paw of dread swept up Mike's back. _What have I done? _

The Master slowly stood up and faced Naismith directly. "Go sit down," he ordered. As Mike watched in horror, both Naismith and his daughter gaped slightly, then simply returned to their chairs without a word. The Master gave Mike a sly, triumphant smile, and sat back down to begin his own reprogramming.

Mike wasn't going to go down without a fight. He stepped up to the Master's side. "Whatever you're thinking, stop. I'm not going to let you do it."

"And how are you going to stop me?" The Master flicked a finger, and the two guards stepped closer to Mike. In the space of a minute, he'd managed to gain command of the entire room with nothing but the sheer force of his fiery personality (living up for once to his chosen name) – and Mike's mental Prozac. He grinned again. "But I think I'll keep you around for the entertainment value. My very own tame Doctor." He turned to the guards. "Put him into one of the isolation booths. At least he can make himself useful there. Don't let the radiation escape!" he sing-songed the last to Mike, taunting.

As Mike hesitated, staring, the guard behind him jammed his rifle barrel into his side. "Move!" He was thinking frantically, but couldn't see any way out, not at that moment. He'd have to bide his time – for now. He walked stiff-backed into the empty left-hand booth and let the technician out of the other one, then sat, ignoring the controls while he glared across the room at the victor, who was calling for a platter of steak, his skull flashing through his skin again when the guards didn't move fast enough to suit him.

_This isn't over, Skeletor._


	5. Geometry

**Geometry**

**Elements** n. 5. _Geometry:_ one of the points, lines, planes, or other geometrical forms, of which a figure is composed.

^..^

_Remember Elizabeth_ had seen a steady – and steadily increasing – stream of Christmas shoppers all afternoon; Donna hadn't been able to step away from the register for hours, while Rose and Wilf had been kept busy trotting unceasingly back and forth between sections, helping customers find that perfect gift. "Good thing I was wearing my running shoes!" she grinned at him in passing. Even Sylvia was pressed into helping when she stopped by after work, although she soon excused herself to go upstairs and ride herd on the youngest generation; drafting them in turn into helping her prepare a light supper and bringing it down to the others to snatch bites as they could.

Donna looked up during a rare moment's breather, and caught Rose's eyes across the shop, seeing her own restrained worry reflected in them. They hadn't heard a word from either husband in hours. Rose looked pointedly at the grandfather clock by the entrance: two hours to go till closing. She didn't have to speak aloud for Donna to hear the next sentence: _and then I'm going out after them._ She nodded agreement, _me too,_ and turned to smile at the next customer.

Davey had decided to prove his nine-year-old maturity by staying below to help the grownups in the shop after bringing Mum her sandwich, and was soon busy keeping the displays straight and putting misplaced items back where they belonged. A particular book on the New Arrivals table caught his eye and he stopped for a moment, staring at the cover, wondering where he'd seen that man before. Just as he thought he was about to remember, he felt an odd tickling sensation sweep through his mind, and he looked up quickly to see almost everyone in the shop suddenly shake their heads as if to clear them, some reaching up with a hand to rub a sudden headache away from their temple. Then, without a word, they all simply went back to what they were doing; not one noticed that everyone else had done the same thing.

Davey took particular note that the only two people who hadn't seemed to be affected were Mum and Aunt Donna. He was about to go speak to Mum about it when a customer accidentally knocked over several piles of books on a nearby table, and he rushed over to stack them neatly again. He didn't remember either the man on the book or the incident until later.

The two hours crawled slowly by, and finally ended. Wilf locked the door on the dot against late arrivals and stood by to let the final customers out one by one as they paid up. Just as the last one was leaving, another figure slipped in past Wilf's choked-back objection: the Doctor had finally returned. Any words of reproach Rose or the others might have given him were swallowed at the sight of his haggard, haunted look, as he slung himself wearily into one of the chairs around the staff table at the back. Sylvia was just coming downstairs with the other three children and joined the cluster around the table..

"I had him. I found the Master, and I was talking to him, and then... somebody else got him. A group of paratroopers, of all things, suddenly swooped down from a pair of helicopters and nabbed him. They stunned me," putting a hand to the back of his head, then wincing away, "and pulled him up to one of the birds and took off. I couldn't see any kind of insignia; I don't have a clue who they were or why they wanted him – or how they knew he was there." He shrugged. "I just don't know." He sighed, then looked around. "Where's Mike? Hasn't he come back?"

Donna already had her mobile to her ear, now she caught the Doctor's eyes with her own, the worry she'd held back all afternoon flooding out. "No, and I can't reach him. It's going straight to voice mail, like he's turned his mobile off." She hesitated, then flipped her mobile closed without leaving a message.

"Dad?" came Davey's voice, soft and tentative. He'd gone utterly still when the Doctor had said "the Master", as memories of his Dad's stories about that other Time Lord ran through his mind – and other things began falling into place. "Dad, what does the Master look like?"

It was an odd question, but then, this was the Doctor: odd was normal. He shot Davey a puzzled look, then turned to Donna. "Do you have a picture of Harold Saxon somewhere?"

She turned and walked swiftly to NonFiction, pulling out a paperback and bringing it back. Without a word, she handed it face-first to Davey, a biography of the late Prime Minister of several years before and the mystery that surrounded him from birth to death. Davey's eyes got huge, and he turned back to the Doctor. "That's him. He's one of the three men in my dream – my nightmare. And, Dad - " he turned and ran to snatch up a copy of the book that had caught his eye before. "He was one of them, too."

He handed both books to the Doctor, who studied Davey's intently: a biography entitled _Fighting the Future_, on billionaire Joshua Naismith. The handsome black gazed confidently from the cover.

"That's who called Mike!" Donna gasped. "I didn't put the names together until just now! Mike's gone to help Joshua Naismith with some bit of alien tech – at least that's what he claimed he had."

"Naismith..." the Doctor murmured. "There was a large N painted on the bottom of the choppers." He blew his breath out, then looked sharply at his son again. "You said there were three men?" Davey nodded. "Who was the third? Have you remembered?"

Davey stared at the table, recalling his dream. "No... I mean, I remember his face now, but I still don't know who he is."

"May I look?" The Doctor put his hand out towards Davey, but hesitated, making sure he had his son's permission to look into his mind. Davey nodded, and his father gently touched the side of his face. He didn't have to search for the image; it was right there.

Everyone stared at the Doctor in alarm; he slowly gasped, his eyes going round as saucers, as he pulled his hand away from Davey and actually shrank back from him, as far as he could in his chair. "Rassilon..." he whispered. Only Rose knew that name; she'd heard him mutter – and sometimes scream – it during his nightmares.

_Rassilon!_ He though frantically. _Has he somehow managed to escape the Time Lock? No, that's impossible – and I'd know it instantly if he had. But why is he in Davey's dream, along with the Master? It must be something the Master's about to do, to release him. Well, whatever it is, it's not going to happen. Not if I can help it._ He shied away from the image that hovered just out of reach, of the Earth under the dominion of those two evil Time Lords.

"Dad?" Davey's voice was shaking; had _he_ done something wrong? Rose put her arm around her son's shoulders.

The Doctor shut his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face, then took a deep breath, forcing calm. He looked back at Davey, first, to reassure him. "It's all right. Just... the next time you have a nightmare, make sure I _see_ it right away. OK?" Davey nodded vigorously, and his Dad gave him a weak smile. Then the Doctor took up Naismith's book again and turned it to Donna. "Where can I find him?"

As she scurried over to the computer to look up the location of Naismith's estate, Rose squeezed Davey's shoulders, saying "It's OK, honey. We need you to stay here and help look after the little ones, OK?"

The Doctor jerked around at that, staring at his wife, then swiftly standing and shaking his head. "No. Rose, you're staying here, too."

"What?" she stared back at him. "No, I'm not!"

"Rose." She started to look away, exasperated, but he caught her hand and pulled her close, willing her to look at him. "Rose..." he repeated, softer, but still firm. Finally, she turned back to him, gracing him with her best "you've got to be kidding" look.

"How long have we been together?"

The question surprised her into answering, a bit unwillingly. "Twelve years, all together."

"And during those twelve years, have I _ever, once_ asked you to stay behind for your own safety? Have I _ever, once_ tried to hold you back?"

She didn't want to answer, but he wouldn't continue until she did. "No," she finally admitted.

He bent down and put his forehead to hers. "I'm asking you now. Rose, the Master is a Time Lord. I _have_ to face him alone. You can't help me there – there's just nothing you can do. And the _instant_ he sees you, he'll know you're mine, and he'll use you as a weapon against me – and he'll have me, because I'd do anything to keep you safe. And he'll know it." He paused. "Please, love. Please. Stay here, and stay safe – and keep our son safe. Please?"

She closed her eyes, still not wanting to acquiesce – but she knew already she didn't have a choice. A last heavy sigh, and she looked at him again. "OK. I'll stay here – until dawn. If you're not back by sunrise, I'm coming after you, Mister. And _nothing_ is going to get in my way then."

He smiled. "Yes, ma'am." Then he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a slow, passionate kiss, pouring all his love into it. "I love you more than life itself. You know that, right?"

"Ditto." She grinned at him, just a bit shaky, and stepped back, dropping her arms, letting him go.

The Doctor turned to take the scrap of paper from Donna with Naismith's address. He swept his eyes around the little circle of those who meant so much to him – the first real family he'd had in centuries. The only one missing was his twin. _Michael, what have you gotten into? Are you facing off against the Master even now?_ The thought of Mike against his old enemy wasn't one he wanted to contemplate; nor did he want to examine the reasons for that bit of cowardice. _Of course I trust him!_ He mentally shouted at the half-formed question.

_Michael. The Master. Naismith. Rassilon. And me. Five points on a star. And the fate of the Earth in the balance. Again._ He sighed. _Once more into the breach, dear friends._

He started to turn to leave, then stopped, looking again at his family, and then began an odd little ritual – putting a palm to each of their foreheads, one by one, alternating hands: Rose, Davey, Donna, the twins Loren and Lyra, Sylvia, five-year-old Lucy, Wilf. "What are you doing?" queried Donna, bemused.

"I'm putting a mental shield over each of your minds, so the Master can't detect you from a distance." _Among other things,_ he didn't add aloud. Finishing up with Wilf, he turned back to the three women. "Lock up down here, and go upstairs. Pull the blinds, don't show any lights, don't go out. Be very careful. Sylvia and Wilf, stay here tonight. Stay inside, stay safe. Please?"

If it hadn't been for the 'please', they might have laughed at his so very uncharacteristic instructions, but... "Yes, sir," Rose replied solemnly, echoing his earlier reply to her. She couldn't help reminding him, though: "Till dawn."

"I'll be back by then. Don't worry."

"Oi!" Donna broke in. "_With_ my husband, if you please!" She couldn't keep up the brassy front, though. "Please... bring him back to me safe."

The Doctor nodded, unsmiling. He didn't need to say more. Then he turned, and slipped out the back door to the TARDIS.


	6. Habitat

**Habitat**

**Element** n. 6. _Habitat:_ An environment especially suited to or associated with an individual; _he was in his element_.

_^..^_

The Master raised his head, staring into the middle distance, breathing deeply, then he glanced over at the half-breed glaring at him from the isolation booth and smiled gleefully before returning to the computer. _I'm almost finished. You're too late, Doctor. As usual. _Tracking the Doctor's progress to the Gate room by scent with one corner of his churning mind, he raced through adding the last few parameters to his program, locking the last one into place just as a familiar tousle-headed string bean burst through the side door.

"Stop! Whatever you're doing, just stop it!" the newcomer cried as he cast his horrified gaze around the room, seeing first his caged, helpless twin, then the owners of the mansion gaping stupidly at him from their observation seats, and finally, his old nemesis, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms while giving him the familiar superior smirk.

"Oh, right!" replied the Master. "Has that _ever_ worked? 'Stop, just stop!'" he mimicked the Doctor's habitual cry. "Has anyone _ever_ just dropped what they were doing just because you barge in and tell them to? I didn't think so." He sprang to his feet, the chair crashing away behind him, and started twitchily pacing around the Doctor. "And you can forget about your friends down below saving your ass, whoever they are; I've locked them out of the system and disabled their transporter." He stopped pacing suddenly a step away from the Doctor, whirling to put his face inches away. "Where's the TARDIS? I know you brought it here. Where is it?"

"What are you doing? What are you up to?" The Doctor ignored the Master's useless questions to ask his own, but then, realizing it, went on without an answer. "Whatever it is, you don't have to do it. Leave it. Leave this place. Come with me, let me help you. We could go traveling together, just you and me, and see the universe."

Mike, listening silently from the booth, was struck anew by his twin's desperate, fatal relationship with his old nemesis, seeing it for the first time as an outsider. _Just the two of you? What about Rose and Davey? What about me? Will you EVER be able to let go of this obsession with being the only Time Lord in existence? Will you EVER see how horribly it's warped you? Will you EVER be free of it, and of him?_

The Doctor was still pleading. "You don't have to conquer the universe. Just seeing it is enough. Come with me. Let me help you. I know we could figure it out together, whatever this madness is."

"Could you make it stop?" The Master was caught. "Can you make it finally stop? The drumming, Doctor, the incessant, unceasing drumming. There, in my head, my whole life, my entire life, on and on and on and on, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four!" His hand had crept up without his realizing it, and was pounding his head in time to the beats. "One-two-three-four! It never stops, it never stops!"

The Doctor shook his head, bewildered. "Your whole life you've heard them?"

"Since I was eight years old, taken as you were, as we all were, to the Untempered Schism, to gaze upon the rip in space and time." The Doctor nodded, remembering all too well the initiation ceremony all young Time Lords had to undergo before joining the Academy. "It started then, and it's never stopped. Never. Every moment of my entire life, it's been there in my head, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four! Can't you hear them? Can't you?"

"No, I can't. They're not real, Master!"

The Master stared at him for a long, long moment, conflicting emotions flooding through him. He wanted to believe the Doctor, but... the drums were always there. They were real, even if only inside himself. "Oh, you're bloody useless! This is pointless, Doctor!" He spun on his heel and stalked around the perimeter to the Gate, entering commands into the computers and throwing switches on consoles. The huge structure began to hum and glow with unearthly energy, ripples of green and blue plasma flashing through the interior.

"What are you doing? No, wait!" The Doctor whirled to Naismith, sitting silently by. "Why are you letting him do this? Stop him! You don't know what he's capable of!" He broke off as the billionaire simply gaped at him, then whirled back to the Master at the Gate. "What have you done to him? To all of them?" Every technician and guard in the room was simply standing by, waiting and watching.

"Don't ask me, I didn't do anything. Ask your half-human pet, it was his doing."

The Doctor looked at Mike, who simply shook his head. He wasn't about to launch into an explanation, though his insides were churning. _What have I done? My little tweak couldn't have done that much damage. It was only supposed to tone things down the tiniest bit!_ He couldn't figure out how it had cowed Naismith and the others so completely – the Master must have been reinforcing it somehow. But there was no time to get into that now.

The Doctor let it go, and turned back to the Master. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Watch and learn, Doctor!" He walked into the center of the Gate and whirled, a huge grin splitting his face. The Doctor started to lunge at him, but he raised his hands, blue electric energy building and swirling around them, then it shot out and touched off a firestorm, reacting with the energy of the Gate.

Suddenly, everyone else in the room besides the two Time Lords and Mike began whimpering, shaking their heads as if to clear them, rubbing their temples and then clutching their heads and moaning. "My head! It's going to explode!" one of the guards cried. Even the talking heads on the banks of monitors at one side of the room, tuned to live news channels from around the world, began mimicking them – whatever the phenomenon was, it was global.

The Master began a countdown, "Five, four, three, two, one, NOW!" and another firestorm roiled through the gate. This time the Doctor could see and feel a wave of crackling energy streak out from the gate, through the room and beyond – from the feel of it, it went right around the world. The Master's form fizzed out, every molecule in his body gyrating wildly, blurring the sight of him to other's eyes – and then everyone else began the same molecular dance, even the ones on TV. The Doctor kept spinning around, trying to keep everyone in sight, sharing horrified, speechless stares with Mike behind the glass, the only one they could see who was unaffected.

Mike lunged to his feet, terrified. He put a hand to the glass, shouting "Donna? The family?"

The Doctor gasped, then shook his head, remember the shield he'd put in their minds before he left. _Thank all the stars I thought of that._ "They should be OK," he told his twin quickly, and Mike wilted in relief, leaning his forehead on the glass.

Just then, the fizzing began to fade, each person in the room and on the TV screens coming back into focus. The Doctor and Mike stared unbelieving from one to the next, as each one stood up straight, removing helmets, loosening tight clothing, and began laughing – the exact same maniacal laugh as was coming from the Gate.

For every person in the room – and every person on the face of the planet – had been turned into the Master.

"What have you done?" whispered the Doctor, beyond horror.

"What I was _born_ to do! I've wiped out the entire, stinking, stupid human race!" came the Master's gleeful, insane reply.

"Welcome, Doctor! Welcome to my family! To me! Welcome to the Master Race!"


	7. Religion

**Religion**

**Elements** n. 7. _Religion:_ sacred items essential to an important religious rite, such as the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

^..^

Which is blacker, the distant, time- and space-bending edge of the universe, far beyond the reach of the faint, twinkling light of stars left so impossibly far behind? Or the pitiless depths of a depraved mind, bent on the domination and destruction of All That Is, yet thwarted in its evil ambition and deprived of its awesome power?

One planet, circling twin stars. One system, set in the mind-bending rainbow of cosmic hues that was the Porterion Nebula. One day, one moment, stretched to the edge of forever, locked into place without hope of end or escape. One man who held the key – and dared to use it, to stop a war that threatened the destruction of all life in the universe.

One man who made that threat, annihilation incarnate.

Flanked by a pair of armed ceremonial guards, Lord President Rassilon, back from the dead, swept majestically through the doorway called the Whispering Eye and into the inner sanctum behind the Council Chamber holding the governing body – what remained of it, anyway – of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. Furious beyond reason at how his Ultimate Sanction had been thwarted by one single man, after it had been nearly unanimously approved by the entire Council (and the two who had voted against it would be forever shamed, he would see to it), he was single-mindedly determined to find the way out.

"Where is he?" he growled at the seven unfortunate souls gathered around the ornate, scalloped table.

Lady Timona swallowed nervously. "My Lord, he has escaped. But he still has The Moment – and by all indications, he will use it. We have lost." He whirled on her, scowling fiercely enough to freeze a volcano. She swallowed again, but went on, forced beyond endurance by her own fear. "Perhaps it is best. This war has been so utterly destructive. It must end, before all creation is warped and destroyed."

"_Never!_" Rassilon snapped. "I will _never_ be defeated, especially by one such as the _Doctor!_ I will _never_ die! But if that is _your_ wish, so be it!" He raised his left hand, covered with a heavy, studded metal glove, and aimed his fist at Lady Timona. She screamed as a whip of red Vortex energy struck her, slicing through her cells, ripping her atoms apart. The scream faded into the ether along with the glowing remains of her particles, and the other six remaining at the table shifted nervously, shocked and cowed.

Rassilon sat heavily in his massive wooden chair, seething. No one dared speak for several long moments, then Lord Sasero rose shakily to his feet. "My Lord, there is a possibility. The prophecies of the Sorceress," and he gestured to the figure at the other end of the table, an impossibly ancient crone whose wild, scraggly hair and nails matched the madness in her eyes, "speak of a second entity, in balance to the one who threatens Gallifrey, an eternal enemy."

"The Master," Rassilon named him. "But he has disappeared, out of all knowing. How could we reach him?"

Sasero pulled out an old scroll. "I believe we may have already done so. The records speak of a signal somehow implanted into the Master's mind when he faced his initiation, though the record-keeper did not know its genesis. A four-part beat."

The President stared at the old Councilor, confused. Then, from down the table, came a curious rapping – the Sorceress was tapping on the table with a long, torn, dirty fingernail. Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. Four taps, a pause, four more, over and over.

A slow, wolfish smile spread across Rassilon's face. "The beats of a Time Lord's twin hearts." He turned back to Sasero. "Send the signal. Implant it in the boy's mind. Use the Eye of Harmony; it will reach back to that day and bury it deep within, too deep to be rooted out."

As the Time Lord scurried away, Rassilon leaned back in his chair, his gaze turned inward, searching for the way out of the trap set by the renegade Time Lord, the man he hated above all others. The damned, traitorous, betraying Doctor.

^..^

The man in question was staring, more shocked than he had ever been in his life, rocked into utter silence (astonishingly enough in itself, with his current gob) by the sight and knowledge of over six billion copies of the Master, replacing (nearly) every individual on Earth. He retained enough wit to hope that his shield had indeed protected all his and Mike's family back in the rooms above the book store, and that they would remain safe and undiscovered until he could figure out the solution. If there was one. At the moment, he was drawing a complete blank.

The Masters – all of them – were still laughing at him, even as they went about checking in with their counterparts all over the world, gathering the reins of human power. Millions of soldiers standing by in every country. Missiles and atomic weapons in the hands of NATO forces and elsewhere. Government heads and multi-national corporation CEOs. Everyone. They hadn't bothered to lock the Doctor up, or even bind his hands; they knew he was completely helpless. They continued to simply ignore Mike, locked safely away in the isolation booth. The Doctor had no way of freeing him, either, not at the moment.

Checks complete, the original Master closed his eyes, leaning his head back and breathing deeply, considering his next move. As always, whenever he stood still for a moment, the continuous drumbeats asserted themselves, drowning out all else, and he found himself tapping his fingers to the rhythm, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. "The drums, the drums, the never-ending drums," he whispered.

He opened his eyes, turning to stare at the Doctor a few feet away. "Can't you hear them? Can't you feel them? The drums, the drums, the never-ending drums!" He walked over to face him squarely. "Can't you?"

The Doctor shook his head, sadly. "They're not real!"

"But they _are!_" he cried in frustration. He reached out with both hands, placing them on either side of the Doctor's head, and brought his own head closer. "Listen, listen, listen!" And he leaned in, touching foreheads.

The Doctor gave a huge gasp, jerking himself backwards and out of the Master's hands, falling to the floor in a tumble, eyes bulging. "I heard them. Oh. My. Stars. I heard them," he whispered.

"It's real. It's _real._ IT'S REEEEEAL!" Incandescent with triumph, the Master shot his arms up, the electric energy burning him through from the inside shooting out of his hands and burning twin holes in the roof, up into the sky. Laughing insanely once again, he whirled and danced in unholy, relieved glee, his skull crackling flames through his flickering skin again and again. The other Masters in the room grinned and laughed along with him, and he turned to them. "You hear it as well?"

"Of course we do! We're you! And it's real!" they replied almost in unison.

The Master gasped as it hit him. "It's not just a noise. It's a signal. To what? To who? To me? From me? What is it, what is it, what is it?" He stopped, gasping again, his astonished, gleeful grin returning. "Six billion... Oh, that's it. That's why." He whirled on the Masters standing by the comms. "Send out a message to every last one of me. Drop what you're doing and stand by. Whatever this signal is, whoever it's for, we're sending it out. All of us. Together."

Ignoring the Doctor's protests, as always, he stepped back to the center of the gate and turned to face the room. When his duplicates at comms relayed the worldwide ready, he gave the order: "Close your eyes and concentrate. Send this signal out."

And six billion-plus minds took hold of the drumbeats, amplifying and synchronizing them, and as one sent them into the Void.

^..^

Lord Sasero rushed back into the chamber. "My Lord! The signal was implanted as you ordered, and we are receiving something back! The same four beats, coming from across time, across the universe."

"From where? Where has the Master gotten to?" demanded Rassilon.

"From Earth, my Lord."

"Earth? The Doctor's favorite planet. How fitting, that his pets will be witness to the End of All Things." He raised his gloved hand again and gestured with it, causing a ghostly, holographic the planet in question to appear, hovering above the table. The seated Councilors drew back, knowing that it wasn't merely a representation, but a linked, real-time image of the planet itself, complete with weather and all its incredible, varied life.

"The signal isn't strong enough to lock onto, though, my Lord. It's only an idea. We need something physical to help us break out of the Time Lock."

"Something physical?" Rassilon considered, puzzled.

A whisper reached him from the other end of the table. The Sorceress, deep in her holy madness, was muttering, "... so small and shining, shining bright and cold, the tiny tiny star, falling, falling burning..."

The wolfish smile returned to Rassilon's face. He held his non-gloved hand behind him without looking, and the guard on that side reverently placed his tall, bejeweled staff within it. Rassilon brought it around before him, scooting the base to one side to reach the top. There, nestled within its platinum setting, was a huge, brilliant, shining diamond, glittering its own light deep within. "Something small, so small and shining, that can follow the link." He pried the diamond from the staff, stood, and hurled it towards the linked image of Earth. As it neared the image, it flared out and disappeared.

^..^

One of the Master's clones stopped dead. "Do you hear that?" A high, white vibration was burning through the sky above.

The Master raced to the wide french doors, in time to watch a meteor streak through the night, falling towards the woods a few miles off. "It's there! Find it! _FIND IT!"_

^..^

Rassilon swept into the large Council Chamber, striding up to the podium to address the Lords of Time. The other inner council members lined up behind him, his guards at the wings, and the two disgraced Lords were forced to kneel, faces hidden by their hands as the symbol of their ultimate humiliation, on either side of the raging President.

"My Lords! Victory is at hand! We are returning to the universe outside the lock, and we will be victorious! This is our finest hour! The Ultimate Sanction! To Victory! To Gallifrey! To the end of time itself!"


	8. Electricity

**Electricity**

**Element** n. 8. _Electricity:_ The resistance wire in an electrical appliance such as a heater or an oven, which provides the heat or ignition source.

^..^

Donna stood by the window in the darkened living room, peeking out of the closed miniblinds into the street below, trying to contain her anxiety. She glanced through the door to the hallway at Rose, who was trying not to pace and only partially succeeding, between the kids playing quietly in the den and Wilf and Sylvia watching the news at low volume beside Donna. The American President was due to begin a speech announcing his solution the worldwide economic crisis at any moment.

Movement in the street caught her eye, and she turned back to watch her neighbors, the Christoffs, stroll down the sidewalk under the streetlamps in the dark December evening. The couple paused in front of their house, both of them seemingly reacting to a sudden, piercing, headache-inducing noise – although she couldn't hear anything through the window. Just then, she noticed each of the other five people in sight doing the same thing.

"Rose!" she whispered. "Come here and look at this!"

Just as the other woman reached her, Sylvia exclaimed, "What in the world is wrong with the telly?" Both women turned to look at the TV, where the President's face had turned fuzzy, as if he were shaking it back and forth at lightning speed. Oddly, though, his clothes were still in focus. Wilf quickly changed the channel with the remote – and again, and again, finding the same strange phenomenon on every one. Each live shot of someone, be it the President or a newscaster, was doing the same impossibly rapid St Vitus' dance.

Donna shrugged and turned back to the window, only to gasp and reach a shaky hand to Rose. The people outside were doing the same thing! Although their clothes were fine, and everything else was standing still, their heads and hands were blurred out. As the women watched, they stilled – and each and every one of them suddenly had the same grinning face. The seven duplicates began turning and waving to each other, giggling insanely like kids on Christmas morning.

Twin gasps behind them made them turn back again, to see the same face again on the TV, wearing the President's clothes. The man cackled at the camera, saying, as if in response to someone they couldn't see or hear, "I'm everyone on Earth, and everyone is me!"

"Harold Saxon!" exclaimed Sylvia, then the four adults turned to stare at each other, remembering the conversation earlier. Rose was the one who said it aloud. "The Master...!" She began shaking her head, turning back to Donna. "I'm not staying here now. Not after this. John and Mike need help. I don't know what we can do, but they can't take on an entire planet of the Master by themselves!"

Donna nodded, not speaking. She was going, too, even though she was more frightened than she'd ever been in her life – and that was saying something, after her travels with the Doctor.

A short time later, the four adults met again in the hall, speaking in low voices so as not to alert the kids. Rose and Donna had changed clothes, putting on the darkest things they had, and Rose had borrowed a knit cap from Wilf to cover her blonde hair.

Wilf turned to his daughter. "Go and check out the window, sweetheart. See if the street is cleared out." She nodded and went into the living room, and Wilf turned to Rose. He started to speak, then gave her a weak grin. "Want to trade guns?"

Rose gave him a puzzled look, then grinned back, remembering his suggesting that after she'd taken out the Dalek those years ago during the crisis with the Crucible. "I don't think a paintball gun would help, Grandad." She'd begun calling him that after their return from the other universe, with his loving permission; they'd all informally adopted each other.

"No. But a service pistol might." He pulled his hand from behind his back, and held his old World War Two handgun out to her. "It's loaded."

She took a deep breath, looking from the gun to his earnest, worried face. Nodding, she took the gun, checked the safety, and stuffed it into her belt, and then she flung her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. He put one arm around her, then reached for Donna with the other, drawing her in.

"Good luck," he told them, kissing each one on the cheek. They returned it, together, and then turned toward the stairs. Sylvia softly called the all clear from the window, and they blew her a kiss, and were gone.

^..^

Rose and Donna drove cautiously through the dark, mostly deserted streets, Donna behind the wheel of her little car. Managing to spot and skirt a few distant mass gatherings in the streets, they passed a few solo clones of the Master, who ignored them, going about their mysterious business, and sped out into the countryside towards Naismith's mansion. Once out of the city proper, they saw no one, and both breathed sighs of relief.

They were almost there when they spotted the meteorite blazing down into the woods nearby. Donna pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road. "I've never seen something like that so clearly, or land so near. Have you?"

"Nope." Rose took a deep breath. "I don't know what it is, but anything out of the ordinary, in circumstances like these, is cause for investigation. I've learned that much."

Donna nodded agreement, and the two women stepped out of the car. Donna pulled a flashlight from the boot, and they began searching through the woods towards the point they thought it had come down. A deer path appeared, going their direction, and they took to it. Partway along it, though, Donna froze and looked back. "Listen!"

Apparently they weren't the only ones interested in the meteorite. Several vehicles had pulled up and stopped on the road by their car, and numerous flashlights were flashing through the woods behind them, while identical voices called out to each other.

"Hurry!" They turned and went as fast as they could through the brush, almost running, until they stumbled upon a small, smoking crater. Right in the middle of the bottom, something sparkled enticingly. Rose hesitated, then jumped down into the hole, and swiftly picked it up. She climbed back out and showed her prize to Donna: a huge cut diamond, sitting in her palm, miraculously cool to the touch – though that was no more outrageous than the idea of the diamond itself surviving the fall through the atmosphere. They couldn't take time to admire it, though, as shouts told them the other searchers were closing in. "Scatter!" cried Rose, and she turned one way, while Donna dashed into the woods in the other direction, turning off her flashlight.

They each tried to make their way through the underbrush as quietly as they could, turning after a few yards to try to parallel the path back to the car, thinking they'd meet up there. The searchers found the crater and wasted several minutes searching it and the nearby ground for anything that might have caused it. Then one of them found the path of crushed vegetation Donna had left behind – and another shouted from Rose's trail, and the treasure hunt changed instantly to a manhunt.

The clones, with the advantage of being able to use their lights, closed in quickly. Donna dove into a tiny ravine and rolled under a fallen tree, pulling her feet in just in time as her trackers rushed by, jumping over her hiding place with only a quick glance down. Rose wasn't so lucky. Racing between a pair of evergreens, she tripped over an exposed root, and before she could pull herself up, a flashlight beam found her. The cry went up as she was grabbed and hauled to her feet, the clones exclaiming in shock at finding someone who hadn't been changed. Then they spied her clenched hand and pried it open, finding the diamond, and the shout pulled the three who had doubled back towards Donna's trench off the hunt.

Donna held her breath and listened as hard as she could, crying softly in fear and frustration as she heard them push their captive back to the trucks, pile in, turn around, and take off towards the distant lights of the Naismith mansion. _What do I do now? Oh sweet mother of god, what do I do? _

^..^

The Master, pacing furiously, stopped cold and turned towards the Gate room door as it opened – and gasped. The Doctor turned, too, of course – and the world fell apart. Shamefaced, her hands bound behind her with an electrical tie, unable to look at her husband, Rose was marched in and deposited before the Master by four grinning clones.

The Master didn't have to ask. One sniff and he knew who she was, if not her name – her husband's scent was unmistakable. "Oh, now this is the _perfect_ Christmas present! My new consort!"

Rose stiffened – but that was nothing compared to the Doctor's reaction. He began to launch himself blindly at her captor, only to be stopped dead by a pair of rifle barrels, one pushed into his chest, the other directly touching his forehead. Ignoring their holders as best he could, he growled "Noooooo!"

"Ooooh, yes!" chortled the Master, not taking his eyes from hers. He began to circle her, inspecting her like a racehorse, while the Doctor seethed, on the verge of pushing past the rifles and getting himself shot. The Master returned to his starting point in front of her, and stepped very close. "You're my prize, you delicious thing. You're mine!"

"Lay one finger on me, and you'll pull back a bloody stump," Rose told him, fierce but level, a solemn promise. "I am not Lucy. I will never be yours, by any definition." She held her head up, proud and uncowed, refusing to let her fear show.

Her captor sniffed, perhaps catching a whiff of that fear, anyhow. He grinned ferociously at her. "We'll see about that, my dear. We'll just see."

He glanced at the lead guard, who was holding an old pistol out to him. "She had this on her, sir." He took it, looked at her, and contemptuously tossed it aside, where it slid and skittered to the wall near the isolation booths. Flashing another triumphant look at the Doctor, he dismissed him again, then turned back to the lead guard. "What fell from the sky?"

The lead guard held out his other hand, and the Master gasped again, snatching the diamond up and dancing away. "Oh, oh, magnificent! Impossible! Brilliant!" He held the stone up to the light, and it caught it, flinging it out again across the room in every direction, impossibly magnified until it was glowing brighter than the lights above it. The Master gasped again as the truth hit him, and he whirled, still holding the diamond up, and crowed at the Doctor. "Do you see? Do you understand? Do you get it now? It's a White Point Star!" He began laughing again, dancing around the room, still holding it up to the light. "Oh, it all makes sense now! My entire life, the signal, the drums, all leading to this moment. To my destiny!"

He stopped in front of the imprisoned Doctor, dropping the diamond into his fist and holding it before the other's face. "Now I can use it to boost the signal. And use it – as a lifeline. Sent to me for that purpose. Oh, Doctor! Do you see? Do you understand?"

The Doctor stared at him, mouth agape, horrified beyond words. "No," was all he could whisper. Rose and Mike, helpless, not grasping the situation, simply stood still.

"Yes!" whispered the Master in return, as he'd done before. He turned, catching sight again of his new consort. "But we must keep you safe, my dear – safe and separate, so no one gets any ideas!" He pointed towards the open isolation booth beside Mike's. "Put her in there, and guard her!" One of the clones took Rose's arm and firmly pulled her over to the booth, pushing her inside and closing the door. It latched, but didn't lock, of course. The guard turned his back to the door and stood there, keeping an eye on her would-be rescuer across the room.

Rose turned and sat down, eyes on the floor, still unable to look at the Doctor – or Mike, in the next booth, though she had glanced up to see him there. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my love. I tried to help, and I've just made it all worse. Just like you said. I'm sorry._ Her cheeks flamed again as her thoughts whirled around and around, endlessly circling the same brute fact.

Things looked very, very bad for Team Doctor.


	9. Weather

_**A/N:** Oh fudge, I forgot the pistol in the space of a single chapter. Please reread just the last section of the previous chapter (or not; all that happened was the Master simply tossed it aside). Mea culpa!_

_.

* * *

_**Weather**

**Elements** n. 9. _Weather:_ the atmospheric agencies or forces that constitute the weather, especially severe or inclement weather: _outside __paint __that __had __been __damaged __by __the __elements. _

^..^

The Master and his clones had worked feverishly for several hours, pulling out one of the electronic housing units from the equipment monitoring the Gate to a new position before the room's front doors, opposite the Gate itself, and preparing it to hold the White Point Star and boost the drumbeat signal. Finally, all was ready.

The Doctor had been shoved into a chair on the opposite side of the room from the isolation booths containing both Mike and Rose, although, contemptuously, the Master hadn't seen fit to have him tied or bound in any way. Only one clone guard remained posted over him, keeping his eyes on the Doctor's and his rifle pointed at his right heart, from just outside the prisoner's reach. The other armed guard remained on station in front of Rose's door, blocking their view of each other – not that Rose was complaining about that. She still hadn't mustered the courage to look at her husband's face, knowing she had betrayed his trust and made things much worse.

Mike had managed at one point, while her guard was distracted by the noisy process of converting the housing, to whisper to her through the grille connecting their booths. "Rose! Let me out! The big red button by the door – it locks your door and unlocks mine! Wait till they're distracted – it's noisy!" She nodded without looking up, and waited, biding her time till the right moment. _Just do a better job than I did, Mike. Don't fuck it up like me._

"Everyone stand back!" ordered the Master. "It's time. Oh, at long last, it's time, time to find _all_ the answers!" He held the diamond lovingly, putting it up to his forehead and closing his eyes, shivering in manic delight. Then he looked back to his head communications clone. "Tell the world to stand by to send the signal out again." He gently placed the Star in the socket, and stepped back a single pace, waiting.

Suddenly, even the three non-Masters in the room could hear the drumbeats, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, more in their heads than through their ears, getting louder and louder, as if a planet-sized drum corps were marching steadily nearer. As the drumbeats slid from mental to actual physical noise, a pinpoint of achingly bright white light suddenly appeared in midair in the center of the Gate, then steadily grew larger and larger, seeming to suck the drumbeats into itself until it was obviously the source. The light continued to grow, blinding the onlookers so they had to shield their eyes, until it filled the entire end of the room, encapsulating the Gate.

Louder and louder, brighter and brighter. Everyone was on their feet, shading their eyes but still trying to peer into the heart of the brilliant light, to make out the shadows that were beginning to form within.

"Rose!" came Mike's whisper through the grille, and she glanced around carefully, seeing her opportunity. She edged slowly over and twisted, pressing the button with her elbow as her hands were still bound behind her. They both held their breath as the door locks clicked, but the telltales were drowned out by the pounding drums. She slowly straightened back up, so as not to attract attention with quick movement, and Mike stood by his door, waiting for the right instant to make his move. _Not yet, not yet._ No one had noticed them, not even the Doctor, mesmerized along with the rest.

Darker and darker, larger and larger, the shadows within the blinding light resolved themselves into human shapes – and then the sourceless light began to fade, dimming until it was manageable (though it never faded out completely), and they could see the shapes clearly. A handful of humanoids in stately robes, standing in a line in the back, flanked on either end by an armed ceremonial guard. Before them, two others kneeling, hands held over their faces as if hiding them in eternal shame. And front and center, towering over the others and the room itself, a tall slender staff of office in one hand, a heavy metallic glove wrapping the other, arrogance and triumphant fury writ upon his face, stood...

"Rassilon!" The Doctor named his ancient foe.

"Doctor!" he sneered in return. "How fitting that you should be here, to witness your failure in person. And you, Master – how likewise fitting that our salvation should come at the hands of our most infamous child."

"Me? Saving you?" Sneering seemed to be the order of the day – though the Master didn't quite hit the same note of supreme arrogance as Rassilon. "I'm not saving you. You did this to me, didn't you? You put the drums into my head. My entire life, every minute, every second, the drums, the never-ending drums!" He caught himself before he slipped again into the same worn rant. "You did this!"

Rassilon merely stared at him, bemused, not bothering to reply.

"Oh, but never mind. Look what _I_ have done. I've transplanted myself into an entire planet of people, every one of these stinking humans. But who needs a mongrel race like them, when I can do the same now to the entire race of Time Lords! I'm not saving you, Lord Rassilon, I'm taking over!" The Master raised his hands again, preparing to send the Gate signal through the open link.

Rassilon never blinked. He merely smiled contemptuously, raising his gloved hand and clenching it into a fist. Blue Vortex energy coalesced around the glove, glowing brighter and brighter, sparks of it shooting out to fall, fading, to the floor.

"No! No! Wait! You can't!" The Master cried – too late. Rassilon punched the air with his glove, and the blue field was flung from it, streaking across the room and through each of the Master's clones – and then further, through the walls, a glowing, spreading ring of fire streaking around the globe. The clones began their St Vitus' Dance again, their cells vibrating at impossible speeds, shaking off the overlay of the Master. Within seconds, every one in the room had been returned to their former appearance and identity, and they staggered groggily, gasping for breath and trying to gather their wits. A glance at the monitors revealed the same was happening the world over.

As the former clones regained themselves, they looked around in confusion, turning swiftly into terror, staring at the invading Time Lords under the Gate. Naismith was the first to break, whirling, grabbing his daughter's wrist and pulling her staggering out the door. The restored technicians and guards followed quickly, leaving naught but Time Lords (and Rose) in the Gate room – and Mike saw his chance. He ripped open his booth door and lunged out, flinging himself sideways to roll against the wall and out of view.

But before he could spring to his feet, hell broke loose, as a huge tremor hit the room, knocking loose items over, causing the Master and the Doctor to stumble trying to keep their feet. "The approach begins!" intoned Rassilon. He and the other standing Time Lords raised their arms in welcome.

"The approach of what?" cried the Master, suddenly, finally, feeling just a bit out of control of the situation.

"Of Gallifrey!" came the answer. Rassilon raised his staff, pointing it up through the massive skylight. And there, fading into view, covering the sun and half the sky, was an enormous globe. Fires were visibly raging across its burnt orange surface, a planetary holocaust rolling slowly towards Earth.

"No. No!" the Doctor whispered brokenly.

"Oh, yes! YES!" the Master replied. "Home. At long last, _home!_"

The two of them turned to each other, the Master mystified by the Doctor's horrified reaction. The Doctor shook his head. "You weren't there. You don't know. You ran away and hid at the end of the Time War. You didn't see the horrors they unleashed upon the universe. And if the Time Lock is broken, then everything's coming through, not just the Time Lords, not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties, everything. The War turned into Hell. And that's what you've opened, right above the Earth. Hell is descending."

The Master started to gloat, reveling in it, but the Doctor broke across him again. "_That's not the end of it!_ Even the Time Lords couldn't survive that. Look at it! Can't you see? Gallifrey is _burning!_ Do you think they're just sitting there waiting to die?" He flung his hand out, pointing to Rassilon, standing there triumphantly.

As the Master turned to him, confusion on his face, the Time Lord President began pronouncing. "The time has come for the Final Sanction. The End of Time itself. At _my_ hand! This rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart."

"But that's suicide!" gasped the Master.

"Not for us! We will ascend, becoming creatures of pure consciousness. Free from material bodies, from time and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be."

The Doctor stepped closer to the Master. "Do you see it now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. And I had to stop them. I had to use The Moment, and place the entire War, the entire Sector, under a Time Lock, to prevent the end of _everything_."

The Master shook him off, pleading to Rassilon. "Take me with you! Let me ascend as well, Lord President!"

Rassilon sneered. "You are diseased. Albeit a disease of our own making. But no, you will not be joining us." He raised his gloved fist again. "It begins!"

"No." A new voice sliced through the room, flat and final. "No. It ends. Here. Now." Mike uncurled himself from his crouch and stood tall, walking to the center of the room between the two groups. He didn't look at his twin, but stared into Rassilon's face. "No more."

And then he raised his arm, turned swiftly around, and pointed Rose's pistol straight at the Master's head.

"Why me?" his target demanded, then realized. "Oh. Because I'm the link. Kill me, and the Lock is reinstated." Mike nodded once, and the Master gave him a rueful grimace. "'Gallifrey on one side, Earth on the other, and me in the middle'," he quoted Mike's own words back.

"Mike, no. You can't. It's murder!" the Doctor appeared at his elbow. "Don't do it!"

"No? Isn't this what I'm for? To do the things you can't? 'Blood and anger and revenge', remember?" Mike snarled sideways at his twin, not taking his eyes from the Master.

The Doctor stared at him, horrified to hear his own accusation on the sands of Bad Wolf Bay all those years ago hurled back into his face, realizing only now how they'd eaten away at his brother – his other self – all this time. He shook his head slowly. "I was wrong. That isn't you. It wasn't then, and it isn't now." Pleading now. "Don't do this."

Mike turned his head at last, anguish leaking through his eyes as he stared helplessly back into the others, so very like his own.

"Ever the weakling. Ever the coward." Rassilon's voice came slithering through the air. "Even now, even somehow twinned in another body, you cannot take the final step." Both the Doctor and Mike turned their heads to look at him. "This is why you failed then, and why you have always failed, Doctor. And why you will stand and watch as our victory unfolds. We will ascend, and you will slide into eternal darkness."

And then... as the Lord President ranted on, the woman kneeling behind him on his left slowly lowered her hands from her face, catching the twins' eyes. Tears trickling, she stared at them, one and then the other, and pain stabbed between them all.

"Mother.." Mike whispered, almost soundlessly under the President's rolling voice.

And her eyes flicked left, to the Master. No, _past_ him.

"Mike..." the Doctor whispered, tearing his eyes away from her by force of will. "Give me the gun."

Mike glanced at him, confused, but saw something in his twin's eyes. An idea, an answer. Without a word, he swiftly lowered his arm and handed the pistol to his twin –

– who turned back, pointing it again straight at the Master. Their nemesis, who'd almost started to relax, stiffened again in shock at this unexpected turn, the last thing he would have thought to see.

The Doctor almost smiled. "Get out of the way."

Momentary confusion slid across the Master's face, then he realized what was behind him: the Star. He flashed a triumphant grin and dove to one side, and the Doctor calmly shot a single bullet through the diamond, smashing it.

A howling wind from out of nowhere tore through the room, trying to drive everyone back towards the Gate. Mike and the Doctor clutched at each other, holding themselves up, and whirled around to watch the brilliant white light begin to fade, pulling the Time Lord Council back into the Time Lock. All of them had gone sprawling except for Rassilon himself, who stood tall by sheer force of will, glowering at them.

"Back into the Time Lock, Rassilon! Back into Hell!" yelled the Doctor.

"Then you''ll come with me, Doctors. Both of you!" he replied, and raised his glove once more, the blue sparks flashing.

"No." A terrible voice came from behind them, low and piercing. "Get out of the way."

Without even looking, the twins pushed against each other, spilling to either side of the Master's path. He stood up, his hands already glowing with his electric power, the insatiable fire within already building, his skull again flickering through his skin. "You did this to me. All of my life. It was YOU! The drums, the drums, the never-ending drums! Now YOU will hear them through all eternity!" And he began throwing flameballs at Rassilon from each hand, one after the other, echoing his insane lifelong pulse. "One! Two! Three! Four!"

Rassilon fought back, throwing his own electric fireballs even as the Master's fourcounts struck him, pushing him back. Then the Master lunged at the President to grapple with him hand to hand, as the eternal, unearthly wind picked up even more speed, pushing them back. As Gallifrey wavered, and faded from view above the Earth, the light in the Gate room contracted, sucking the Council back.

And from the Doctor's right, as he crouched on the floor, came a sudden flash of movement.


	10. Components

**Components**

**Elements** n. 10. _Components:_ a constituent of a whole or one of the parts into which a whole may be resolved by analysis: _Bricks __and __mortar __are __elements __of __every __masonry __wall. _

^..^

Donna crouched, shivering, under the fallen tree in the little ditch, frozen in fear. The soldier-clones were long gone, dragging their captive Rose back to the Naismith mansion, and silence had descended on the forest once more.

_What do I do now? What can I do? I'm nobody. I'm not a soldier, or a hero. I'm nothing. I'm just a book shop owner, mother of three. Sure, I used to run around with the Doctor, but I was just his sidekick. I never saved anyone or stopped anything. I'm nothing. Regardless of what I told Grandad this afternoon. I was just tagging along with Rose. She's the superhero, not me. Not me. _

She pulled herself into a little ball of misery and started to cry. December cold seeped up into her frame from the icy ground, and made her shiver even harder. Her family's faces danced through her head, staring at her, and her imagination painted them reaching out to her, calling to her, asking for help, but she couldn't move. Mike stood in front of her, his eyes filled with pain – and then he turned away, defeated. She reached out after him, crying out his name –

– and woke with a start, her hands scrabbling in the dirt, her own voice ringing in her ears. Fury suddenly washed through her, driving her out from under the tree and onto the bank. Fury at herself, fury at the Master, fury at fate.

_So what are you going to do, Donna Noble Smith, just lay there and die, while the Master takes over the world? Are you going to just sit by and let him find your family and kill them?_ She gasped as the awful word crossed her mind – until then, she hadn't quite allowed the inevitable consequences of the Master's victory to sink in.

She took a deep breath and stood up straight, shaking her head. _Not while I'm alive, you won't. I don't know what I can do, but I swear on my family, I'll figure out something._ She took another deep breath, fighting off fear and inadequacy, repeating it to herself fiercely. _I'll figure out something._

_First off, redhead, is getting out of these woods and over to where the action is._ And she started walking shakily towards the distant lights, brushing the dirt off her clothes as she went, smearing a little of it into her face as she wiped off her tears and deciding to leave it for camouflage.

The Naismith estate was perched on a hill overlooking the picture-perfect English countryside, a high brick wall surrounding the house and outbuildings. Donna worked her way around the wall, hiding in the shadows, until she came to the ornate front gate. She crouched under a bush for several minutes, watching for guards – but none came around. _Well, I guess if the everyone in the whole world is him, as far as he knows, there's no need to mount a guard, is there?_ Still, she kept to the shadows as she dashed up to the house as quickly as she could.

Working her way around the back, she found a small door into the lower reaches of the house, and snuck in, finding herself in a dark cellar. She made her way through a series of storerooms, looking for a way up, when she heard small noises coming from the next room. Peeking in, she damn near screamed at the sight of two green-skinned, spiky aliens, dressed incongruously in ordinary lab coats, tinkering with some equipment.

Her gasp alerted them to her presence, and they whirled around, gaping. The realization of each other's non-Mastery – and therefore, potential ally status – hit all three at once. The aliens quickly gave Donna the rundown, as they knew it, including the fact of their inability to escape just then, as the Master had locked out their transporter; that was what they were trying to fix. They also confirmed the presence of three prisoners above, the last time they had snuck up to look.

Sighing in relief at that news, she asked them to show her the way to the Gate room, and the three of them quietly crept upstairs. "But we're not going in there with you," Addams whispered fiercely. "There's nothing we can do. We're just salvagers." They had no weapons to offer her, either – everything of potential use there was up in orbit. Donna nodded, and edged towards the half-open side door.

Crouching down, practically on her belly, she kept her head as close to the floor as she could as she peeked around the door. The first thing she noticed was a pair of glass booths on the far side of the room, with Mike and Rose sitting morosely inside each one. She stifled a sob at the sight of her apparently unharmed husband, then tore her eyes away and continued her surveillance, taking in but not really paying attention to the clusters of equipment here and there. She caught sight of the Doctor sitting in a chair to her left, held at riflepoint by a guard, then, further away near the left end of the long room was a cluster of four Master clones working on some equipment.

Suddenly aware of the silence behind her, she looked around and confirmed that the aliens had left. _Some allies you lot are. Thanks a lot._ Still, they'd gotten her there. She shrugged and turned back, just as one of the Masters – the original, from the way he was acting – ordered everyone to stand back, and bent over the metal cube he'd been working on, putting on the final touches.

She stayed frozen in place through the next mind-blowing minutes, as the drums and the blinding light heralded the arrival of the Time Lords, whose leader, obviously an ancient enemy of the Doctor's, traded sneering barbs with the other two. The Doctor's brief description of the horrors about to descend from the hellish globe suddenly filling the skylight chilled her – yet again – to the bone. When Mike stood up with the pistol – she recognized her Grandad's gun immediately – she blinked; she hadn't seen him get out of the booth. She almost cheered – but then he turned it on the Master behind him.

"Michael. No, don't. Don't do it. Oh, please, god, no," she whispered. She gathered herself up, ready to burst in and add her voice to the Doctor's pleas for her husband's soul, when the two of them turned towards Rassilon. Their eyes slid sideways – and the look of shocked, despairing recognition that crossed both their faces stopped Donna cold.

She glanced quickly to her right to see what had caught their eye, and saw the profile of the kneeling Time Lady, staring achingly back at them, tears coursing in high relief from Donna's side view. _Who is she?_ Donna glanced back just in time to catch Mike's lips moving, and her heart broke for him as she read the word: Mother. _Oh my god._

Suddenly, the tableau broke, as the Doctor took the pistol from his twin and shot at the equipment behind the Master, apparently breaking the connection that had brought the invaders across the void. Roaring out of nowhere, the sudden wind caught the door out of Donna's grasp, flinging it wide. No-one noticed her crouching there, and she hunkered lower, turning her head away from the wind to catch the sight of the light beginning to contract, sucking the Time Lords back into their hell. The wind had knocked most of them over, and Donna stared incredulously into the eyes of her husband's mother only a few feet away – she'd fallen forward rather than back. She was crouching on all fours, simply staring, slipping away. Her tragic, fearful eyes tore at Donna's heart.

Without conscious thought, Donna launched herself forward, stretching her hand out toward the Time Lady, who reacted a second later, automatically reaching with her own – but she was being pulled back. Another lunge, and their hands met, clutching for dear life. Donna felt herself being sucked forward into the retreating light, and cried out, wordlessly.

And then two strong arms were suddenly around her waist, pulling her back. Her hand almost lost its grip, but she flung her other hand out and added it to the connection, and simply hung on as hard as she could. And then another pair of masculine hands came from the side and grabbed on to the older woman's, too.

Suddenly, the light and wind were gone, vanished from one second to the next, leaving four people to collapse gasping on the floor. Donna looked around, exhausted, and found that the arms which had held her back belonged to the Doctor, while the hands that helped her hold on were Mike's – and he was still holding on. The look on his face said he never wanted to let go again.

The Time Lady raised her head, astonished, indescribable joy suffusing her face. She glanced backwards, seeing only smashed equipment, and then back to the others there. "I'm alive. I'm alive!" she whispered. Fighting back tears, she looked back and forth between the two men. "Doctor? How can there be two of you?"

"It's a long story," whispered Mike, an uncertain smile trying to fight the tears.

The Doctor finally managed to move, bringing his arms from around Donna's waist and sitting, hard. His lips tried to form the word Mother, but couldn't – centuries of formal habit denied the familiarity. "Lady Toshana?" he finally managed.

She looked fully at him – and the storm broke. Suddenly the three of them were in each other's arms, still kneeling on the floor, reunited at last.

Donna sat back, smiling, still astonished at herself. "I did it. I did it!" She took a deep breath, letting the wonderful feeling of accomplishment wash over her soul, knowing it was something she could hold onto forever. She wasn't a superhero, but she'd saved a very precious life, and given a priceless gift to her husband and his brother. _It wasn't just me. Each one of us were part of this._ The wonderful feeling of being part of the team again, missing for so long, made her heart sing.

Then she looked up, past the hugging trio to the isolation booths, as the sound of an alarm – growing stronger ever since the wind had died – finally pierced her consciousness, and her smile melted swiftly away. "Doctor? Don't you think we should get Rose out of there?"


	11. Mathematics

**Mathematics**

**Element** n. 11. _Mathematics:_ an entity that satisfies all the conditions of belonging to a given set.

^..^

The Doctor lunged to his feet, with Mike a beat behind pulling up Lady Toshana with him, and ran over to the door of Rose's isolation booth. She stood, hands still bound behind her with the electrical tie, and met her husband's eyes at last. "I'm sorry. I messed it up. I didn't stay put like you asked."

He stared at her, incredulous that she was focusing on that bit at that moment. "Are you kidding? No, Rose, you didn't mess it up. If it hadn't been for you, we would have lost." He flashed her his old grin. "Besides, you wouldn't be the woman I love if you weren't jeopardy friendly." Then the screeching alarm caught his attention again. "Oh my god. It's going into overload. We've got to get you out of there!"

Mike had run up to the other door, reading the gauges through the glass. "We've got about two minutes before the radiation floods the booths." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver to whiz open her door, but Mike grabbed his arm. "You can't. It'll open the circuit and the entire room will be flooded! We'll _all_ be fried!" He winced at his own bad choice of words as the others glared at him.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Then there's only one way to get her out." He started to move past Mike to the other booth, but Rose cried out, stopping him.

"_No!_ No, Mike don't let him! NOOO!" She began looking around at her controls, trying to figure out what to hit with her elbow to speed up the end.

"Rose! No, stop!" he twisted back to her door, desperate. "Please, love, no! You won't survive – you _can't_ survive. I can."

She looked at him, tragic. "No, you won't!" she sobbed. "You'll regenerate. And everything you are, everything that makes you my husband, will die. Please, John. Don't end our marriage this way. I could never live with myself if you kill yourself to save me. I couldn't go on. Please, Doctor. Please!"

He shook his head. "You expect me to just let you die? Rose, how can I do that?"

"Oh, and you're the only one in this room who can survive it?" came a new voice from behind him, calm and dry as toast.

He froze for an instant, then swiveled around to face the speaker: Lady Toshana. She looked at him, a hint of sympathetic pain flickering in her eyes. "I think you've been alone for far too long, my son."

He swallowed. "You'll regenerate," he warned, a bit inanely.

"Good!" came her reply. "I've worn this face too long. Thanks to this incredibly brave young woman," she flashed a smile at Donna, "against all odds, I have a chance for a new life. I think a new face to go along with it is quite appropriate." She stepped past Mike into the other booth, brushing him back with a smile, and he gallantly closed the door behind her. "Rose, is it?" The younger woman nodded, and Lady Toshana pushed the red button, switching the door locks. "Out you go."

She looked at the dials; about a minute to go. Taking a deep breath, she looked sideways at her son, who had pulled his wife out and was holding her tightly, tears streaming down both their faces, as Donna sawed at the bindings with a pair of scissors she'd found on a nearby desk. "I take it this is going to hurt," she said drily sideways to Mike, still at the door.

"Yeah," he agreed, shaky but matching her light tone.

"Well, I will remind you, I _did_ bear you – and I even did it the old fashioned way. Although, I _will_ admit to being glad that at the time, there was only one of you." They shared a shaky but ironic smile – and then the alarm shrieked itself into high gear, announcing the radiation surge. She stiffened, bracing herself – and then screamed as a wave of pain sliced through her every nerve and cell, blistering and burning through to her core. She collapsed onto the floor in a heap as the Doctor whirled back to her door, Rose and Donna crowding behind. While the four of them watched agonizingly through the glass, she jerked and moaned for an endless minute. Then, as it seemed to start to ease, the alarm finally shut off, along with all the lights in the booths – and sparks flew from the controls. A loud double click sounded in the sudden silence. The Doctor reached tentatively for the door handle, then snatched it wide when he discovered it unlocked.

"Is the radiation gone?" asked Mike. His human-dulled senses couldn't quite catch it anymore.

"Yes. She's absorbed it all," came the Doctor's choked, guilty reply. He gently pulled his mother into his arms, picking her up and carrying her out to the center of the room, then he melted down to the floor with her, holding her close.

Rose and Donna stood close together, arms around each other, watching the pair on the floor. Mike walked slowly over to the step under the ruined Gate and sat heavily, his head melting down onto his hands. After a moment, he felt Donna's presence beside him, and she reached for his hand. He resisted for a moment, then let her take it. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"For what?" she quietly asked, puzzled.

"I'm sorry you were stuck with the dud." He couldn't articulate more than that.

"What in the world are you talking about?"

He raised his head, but couldn't look at her. "I used the Gate first. I was just trying to... take the edge off everyone. Just tone down the aggression and fear all over the world, just a bit. But it went too far. It let the Master take over."

The Doctor looked up at his twin. "No, that doesn't work. You can't just tweak anyone's psychology a tiny bit, let alone an entire planet's worth – you throw everything out of balance, and there's just no way to predict what will happen." He watched for a moment, as Mike shook his head, feeling guilty as sin. "So you made a mistake, Mike. So what?" He grimaced. "You think you have to be perfect or something? I thought I was the one with the god complex." As his twin continued to stare at him, he thought back to his realization a few minutes before (was that all it was?), of how his own harsh words all those years ago had wounded his brother so deeply. "Mike... I'm sorry."

Mike shook his head. "Isn't that my line? I'm the one who..." he couldn't say it.

The Doctor didn't have the same problem. "Committed genocide?" Mike nodded. "And I couldn't forgive you for it," continued the Doctor softly. "Not then. But that was a long time ago. I never told you... you were right. It was the only real solution. Nothing less would have ended that war. We've seen what a single Dalek can do. You were right to leave none alive to come back. Mike... I forgave you a long time ago. I'm sorry I never told you till now." There was more that could be said, but Lady Toshana began to stir and moan, and he dropped his eyes to her again.

Mike closed his eyes against unexpected, stinging tears, and Donna squeezed his hand. "Listen, you," she whispered for his ears alone. "You're not a dud. I never wanted to marry the Doctor, or anyone else. I wanted _you_, and I still do – and I always will." He squeezed her hand back, and she put her head on his shoulder, tenderly breathing with him.

Lady Toshana gasped shakily. Her eyes flew open, and she held her hands up before her to see the old familiar golden sheen sparkle across her fingers, repairing the radiation burns. "It's starting! Put me down!"

The Doctor gently eased her to the floor and shuffled back a pace on his knees, giving her room, and Rose dropped to her own knees beside him. Their hands met automatically, interlacing fingers as they had a million times through the years, and would a million more.

The Time Lady cried out as regeneration hit for real, the Vortex energy bursting through her skin and streaming out, rebuilding her from the inside, then fading quickly away. She collapsed back again, moaning softly, then gathered herself up, abruptly feeling more lively and energetic than she had in centuries. A shiver of the sheer joy of living shimmied through her, and she gave her son a broad smile, then set about examining her new self: slender, shapely hands; slim, athletic figure. She put her hands to her head, bringing down and around silky locks of long, bright ginger hair.

Bright... ginger...

The Doctor's face twisted. "Aw, that's just not _fair!_" he whined.


	12. Epilogue: Fundamentals

**Epilogue / Fundamentals**

**Elements** n. 12. _Fundamentals:_ the rudimentary principles of an art, science, etc.: _the __elements __of__ grammar._

^..^

In all the Doctor's long, long history on Earth, this had been without a doubt the most joyous Christmas he'd ever had. He'd spent many quiet happy hours simply talking with his mother, for the first time in his life reaching understanding about so many puzzles from his childhood, and his people. There were so many things she was able to explain, especially about the latter, having lived through the Time War and all the centuries' events leading up to it from inside the Council.

Mike sat in on many of those talks, and for the first time the brothers really felt like brothers, rather than weird, warped, flawed mirror images of each other. The ease with which Lady Toshana – who had decided to anglicize her name to Hannah Smith – accepted Mike as her son, after finally hearing the entire story of his genesis, still caused him to shake his head in wonder.

The kids were all abuzz about their new Aunt Hannah – the adults deciding that trying to explain her real relationship to their respective Dads was just a bit too much for them to handle at the time. Wilf and Sylvia took it in stride, welcoming her to their expanding family. The more the merrier.

Hannah knew she was in for a huge adjustment – anything one could say about it was bound to be a ludicrous understatement – learning to live as a human on Earth. Mike set himself the task of guiding her along the way, starting with English lessons; sooner or later the TARDIS would no longer be nearby with its constant helpful translations. The kids all gleefully helped out; being the teachers instead of the students had them all in stitches regularly. The adults smiled conspiratorially at each other, forbearing to point out to the youngsters that they were learning as much as their Aunt.

A few days after Christmas, the Doctor recalled the Search he'd set Davey on Mars, and asked for the results. The boy proudly brought out the list he'd compiled over the preceding days, grinning ear to ear when his dad admitted he hadn't missed a single definition. He chose hot fudge sundaes for everyone as the prize, and only pouted a little when he had to wait till _after_ dinner.

Very late that night, the kids all tucked into bed, the various adults asleep or in solitary pursuits, Rose snuggled closer into her husband's side in front of the fire they'd set in the TARDIS library, and made a confession. "Actually, I do know of one definition he missed. I was holding back."

His eyebrows quizzed her, and she smiled, quoting, "'Mathematics: an infinitesimal part of a given quantity, similar in nature to it.'"

"And do you have an appropriate example, Madame Assistant Professor?"

She dragged it out a beat, gazing into her beloved's warm brown eyes. "Love. Of all the love in the universe, throughout all of time, part of it is my love for you."


End file.
